


On Finding Your Equal

by dustyfluorescent



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 07:44:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustyfluorescent/pseuds/dustyfluorescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't take long for Moriarty to become an addiction, something to keep Sherlock from trying to rip himself apart in frustration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Finding Your Equal

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen The Reichenbach Fall, you probably shouldn't read this.
> 
> [This](http://youtu.be/l6doLyDy_v0) lovely piece of music was very inspiring. It's also where the lyrics are from.

_First of all must go  
Your scent upon my pillow  
And then I'll say goodbye  
To your whispers in my dreams_

_And then our lips will part  
In my mind and in my heart  
Cause your kiss  
Went deeper than my skin_

Sherlock has always thought of James Moriarty as the most interesting and addicting person he has ever met. Ever since day one, nobody has ever quite measured up to his persistent presence in the back of his head.

It doesn't take long for Moriarty to become an addiction, something to keep Sherlock from trying to rip himself apart in frustration. 

It was, of course, inevitable, that they would end up trying to destroy each other. Too interesting, therefore too dangerous. Like a fire, really. When you get too close, it turns from good and inviting to absolutely terrifying, and that is what, in the end, happens to them both.

Jim is definitely a fire. Raging. Strong. Impossible to comprehend. Always a bit out of reach, until far too close. Never will I ever turn my back on you. Never will I ever let go of you. And it doesn't matter if my grip on you will burn the skin off the tips of my fingers, because without you, I'm more alone than I ever was before, and I don't think that's something I could survive.

 _I will burn you_ , he says.

Sherlock has no doubt.

In a way it makes him sad to think about how everything seems like an accident, but noticing that's really not the case, and everything comes from something and leads somewhere. But it's so wonderfully easy to say he doesn't care when he's around Jim. Everything about him is just running away from anything mundane, and mundane is everything. Dull, uninteresting, something he's seen before, or something he can see immediately without even having to think. 

Jim isn't that. He's everything but.

After what happens at the pool, Sherlock takes a shower. He has a furious wank, leaning against the wall, panting, crying, because never in his life has he ever been more turned on by anything else than James Moriarty's mind games. Nothing else has ever turned him on like this great mind, so great that it doesn't fit inside the restrictions of the average human consciousness, and instead grows twisted, wicked, harder to recognise. A lot like the mind Sherlock has himself. 

Out of place. Weird. Unapproachable. But whatever anyone thinks hardly matters, because more than anything else, it's unbearable to live with, and impossible to understand. 

This is a delightful situation. The game they are playing is delicious. Talking, exchanging ideas and riddles, complimenting someone else's way to think, has never felt more like fucking, and it's the best sex Sherlock has ever had. 

Until, of course, the actual fucking occurs, and Sherlock can't believe that for years, he's thought he could never enjoy this. On the other hand, he's pretty sure he never will again. This is just another weapon. Another game of ideas, and it's the best kind. This new weapon works, because they can both use it. Neither is vulnerable like ordinary people are. They both want it, though. _You're the only man I'll ever want inside me_. It's not surrender. It's a challenge. And Jim's eyes flash something that is not affection, but something far more intriguing. Sherlock comes with a shout and a ghost of a smile on his lips.

They're standing on a rooftop and Sherlock is getting ready to die, at least for a while, when Jim tells him it's dull, staying alive. Just staying. And then he shoots himself in front of Sherlock, holding his hand, smiling, a challenge written in his eyes. He would do that. Likely because it's the only way he can beat Sherlock, and beat him he does. Perhaps not quite like he'd thought. Or maybe precisely like he'd anticipated. Sherlock can't be the only one who understands how brilliant the other is. Jim would never have bothered, otherwise. 

Sherlock may be on the side of the angels, but Jim knows just as well as anyone that it doesn't really define him. Sherlock is on the side of the angels simply because it's convenient. Jim doesn't take sides. He just takes pleasure in making the world unbearable for ordinary people to live in. Jim despises ordinary people. Sherlock can see why.

This might be a weapon, Sherlock realises, or another battle beginning. The trouble is, he doesn't know which it is anymore. He's not sure if he's been defeated. He doesn't know whether he's finally beaten Moriarty, or if the game still continues. 

He decides to keep watching his back.

Sherlock runs away from John, or rather, doesn't return. He can't say he's mourning, not really. But yes, that's what it is. He needs to try and understand, to work out the final problem. What had Jim meant? To point a gun at yourself to prove a point, to win a game of extraordinary measures, and then pull the trigger. Is it a trick? It could be. 

Sherlock can't figure it out. Not on the days when everything is clear as the fact that all lives end, and all hearts are broken. Not on the days when nothing is quite the way it was the last time, and the chemicals raging in his veins build him new windows made of tinted class in every shade of the universe. It doesn't seem to matter. There's a door that he can't get around, and it's because he's not sure if it actually exists.

Was this what he had meant? I will burn you. You will have lost the game, and in the end, you will have nothing left. I will have won. I will have disappeared, and you will never have me back. And in the end, it's just as well, because without me, you will disappear completely. Without me, your existence will become unbearable again, and unbearable is even harder to take the second time around.

Impossible. 

There is no pain like this one, and for once, Sherlock has no solution. The only way out he can see is a trip to hell, to find the one hand worth shaking. The only man he ever felt like calling an equal. The only man he ever really loved, the only one who ever pulled him away from the dull days of existence, the only one worth a fight.

Everything comes from something, but suddenly it seems that every single path leads to nothingness. Sherlock spends hours thinking about it, but in the end, he can't find a way around the gun that he took with him before disappearing from the living, breathing world. The gun that killed his will to live. His only distraction from the unbearable urge to rip himself apart.

He's not one of them, the ordinary people. They don't really need him. He watches John walk away from Sherlock Holmes' grave. John's limp is back, and he looks every bit like a soldier. 

Sherlock turns away, having made up his mind. He's always been on the side of the angels, but in the end, he still belongs with his own.


End file.
